World Inequality Database on Education

The World Inequality Database on Education (WIDE) highlights the powerful influence of circumstances, such as wealth, gender, ethnicity and location, over which people have little control but which play an important role in shaping their opportunities for education and life. It draws attention to unacceptable levels of education inequality across countries and between groups within countries, with the aim of helping to inform policy design and public debate.

Explore disparities in education across and within countries

Compare countries

Compare groups within countries

Compare overlapping disparities

Selecting an indicator compares disparities between countries for different groups, such as wealth, gender or location. Groups are visualized as coloured dots.

Clicking on a country shows the disparities for different groups, such as gender, wealth or location within the selected country.

Clicking on one of the groups shows overlapping disparities within countries. Combining multiple dimensions of inequality, it can compare, for example, education for rural poor women with urban rich men within a given country.

Sustainable Development Goal 4 – Education

Target 4.1: Universal primary completion

In 40 out of 93 countries, fewer than 50% of the poorest children have completed primary school

Target 4.1: Universal secondary completion

More than 50% of young people in 57 out of 127 countries have not completed upper secondary school

Target 4.2: Early childhood care and education

Since 2010, in 24 out of 52 countries fewer than 25% of children in rural areas have the opportunity to attend a pre-primary programme

Target 4.5: Equity by gender

In 30 out of 127 countries, fewer than 90 females for every 100 males completed lower secondary school. In 17 countries, fewer than 90 males for every 100 females completed lower secondary school.

Target 4.5: Equity by language

Grade 4 students who did not speak the language of the test at home were at least 10 percentage points less likely than other students to reach the lowest level of proficiency in reading in 20 out of 47 countries that took part in the PIRLS assessment.

Target 4.6: Youth literacy

In 35 out of 75 countries, at least 25% of the poorest young women are not literate.

Major progress has been made since 2000 in enrolling children in primary school. However, progress has stalled in recent years, and children from marginalized groups continue to face significant barriers to accessing, attending and completing primary school. In Uganda, only 12% of the poorest 14- to 16 year olds had completed primary school in 2011.

According to the first target of the SDG agenda, all young people should complete upper secondary school by 2030. Around the world only 43% of young people did so in the period 2008-14. In Pakistan, only 20% of 20- to 22-year-olds had completed upper secondary school in 2012.

Early childhood is the critical period in which to lay the foundations for success in education and beyond. Yet children who would benefit most from early childhood care and education are least likely to receive it. For example, only 1% of 3- to 4-year old children in rural Iraq have the opportunity to attend pre-primary education programmes.

Despite improvement since 2000, significant gender disparities remain. In the case of lower secondary completion, while the most extreme injustices are still at the expense of females, the disparities can also move in the opposite direction. In Afghanistan, only 33 females complete lower secondary school for every 100 males. By contrast, in Honduras, only 68 males complete lower secondary school for every 100 females.

The SDG target on equity refers to all vulnerable groups, not just those characterized by gender, location, wealth and their interactions. Learning assessments record whether students speak the language of the test at home and it is possible to infer whether they are at a disadvantage. In Bulgaria, 96% of those who spoke the language of the test at home achieved the minimum level of proficiency in PIRLS in 2011 compared to just 68% among those who did not.

Youth literacy rates are higher than ever as a result of progress in primary education. However, progress is still nowhere near fast enough for the most disadvantaged populations. In Yemen, only 21% of the poorest young women could read a simple sentence in 2013